"Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask where have I gone wrong? Then a voice says to me - This is going to take more than one night... In the Book of life, the answers aren't in the back."...Charlie Brown

Friday, March 22, 2013

"Vision....................."

”The world spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally that the mind’s muddy river, this ceaseless flow of trivia and trash, cannot be dammed, indeed, trying to dam it is a waste of effort that might lead to madness. Instead you must allow the muddy river to flow unheeded in the dim channels of consciousness. You raise your sights. You look along it mildly, acknowledging its presence without interest and gazing beyond it into the realm of the real where subjects and objects act and rest purely, without utterance.”….Annie Dillard, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”

The author ends her above thoughts by suggesting if we would “launch into the deep”, we just might see. I was reminded of what Jesus said to Peter, he and his shipmates washing their nets after toiling all night and catching nothing; but she, being a naturalist, speaks of snaring something quite different than a physical meal. She points to visible realities that escape us on a daily basis. My own mind turns that into spiritual revelations, God not necessarily talking to us in an audible voice, but connecting with us, nonetheless, in a number of ways, opening our eyes to know Him in a deeper relationship. For that to happen, however, it all comes down to the same thing I told the kids at the Center Sunday, the men at the mission Wednesday evening. While the Bible says that those who come to God “must believe that He is”, it yet remains, from that point, we all tend to go many directions. The place to start, therefore, and the place to remain as well, is in recognizing our need of Him. Much too often, it seems to me, we form His image out of our own thinking, chapter and verse part of it or not, then set it in concrete and go our own way. Just like the guy who can’t see the forest for the trees, our reasoning hears only what it wants to hear, our will refuses light, adamantly determined it already has everything all figured out. I love a chorus Clint Brown sings that simply goes “Where would I be? You only know. I’m glad You see through eyes of love. A hopeless case. An empty Space. If not for grace.”……